The Police State Mindset in Our Public Schools
By John W. Whitehead
The Rutherford Institute / LewRockwell.com
August 13, 2013
Once upon a time in America, parents breathed a sigh of relief when their kids went back to school after a summer’s hiatus, content in the knowledge that for a good portion of the day their kids would be gainfully occupied, out of harm’s way and out of trouble. Those were the good old days, before school shootings became a part of our national lexicon and schools, aiming for greater security, transformed themselves into quasi-prisons, complete with surveillance cameras, metal detectors, police patrols, zero tolerance policies, lock downs, drug sniffing dogs and strip searches.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, instead of making the schools safer, we simply managed to make them more authoritarian. It used to be that if you talked back to a teacher, or played a prank on a classmate, or just failed to do your homework, you might find yourself in detention or doing an extra writing assignment after school. Nowadays, students are not only punished for transgressionsmore minor than those—such as playing cops and robbers on the playground, bringing LEGOs to school, or having a food fight—but they are punished with suspension, expulsion, and even arrest.
As a result, America is now on a fast track to raising up an Orwellian generation—one populated by compliant citizens accustomed to living in a police state and who march in lockstep to the dictates of the government. Indeed, as I point out in my book, A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, with every school police raid and overzealous punishment that is carried out in the name of school safety, the lesson being imparted is that Americans—especially young people—have no rights at all against the state or the police. In fact, the majority of schools today have adopted an all-or-nothing lockdown mindset that leaves little room for freedom, individuality or due process.
For example, when high school senior Ashley Smithwick grabbed the wrong lunch sack—her father’s—on the way to school, the star soccer player had no idea that her mistake would land her in a sea of legal troubles. Unbeknownst to Ashley, the lunchbox contained her father’s paring knife, a 2-inch blade he uses to cut his apple during lunch. It was only when a school official searching through students’ belongings found the diminutive knife, which administrators considered a “weapon,” that Ashley realized what had happened and explained the mistake. Nevertheless, school officials referred Ashley to the police, who in turn charged her with a Class 1 misdemeanor for possessing a “sharp-pointed or edged instrument on educational property.”
continue article at LewRockwell.com:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/08/john-w-whitehead/all-hail-the-police-state/
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Whistler Blowers, Insiders
Oh my, school campuses sound downright gruesome. I think I would hate to attend an institution with a value system that promoted that level of confirmatory. http://coldwarwarrior.com/
Revolt at Indian River (FL) State College Plantation
“I’d have freed a lot more if they had only known they were slaves.”
—Harriet Tubman: Moses of the Underground Railroad
At Indian River State College (IRSC), I was assigned six (6) classes to teach. I asked about health care as colleges and corporations evade the intent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
My always full classes of 45-50 students were in retaliation revoked.
On the Rate My Professors website, students rank me one of the best professors in the history of Indian River State College. My student retention and student success rates are outstanding. Students were outraged at not receiving this instructor for whom they contracted, and they petition IRSC President Massey who ignores them.
So I establish the Adjunct Faculty Union (AFU) and the Admin blocks me from the college e-mail system. I remind the IRSC Admin of their trespasses on the Bill of Rights. Greed is killing public college education as it violates the rights of students and faculty.
Over 70% of classes at Indian River State College are taught by adjunct professors. Adjuncts are not represented in college governance. IRSC adjunct professors receive about the lowest rate per class in the state ($1600/16 weeks).
Adjuncts carry $60-100,000 of graduate school loans. Yet, they receive starvation wages, no health care, and abuse. If we question master, we adjuncts lose owza classes and they done try to stop us from teaching da others. But, we find a way. We build da Underground Railroad. Our feets are tired!
Trickle-down economics translates to abuse of power. In giant plantation style ivory towers, those who believe themselves plantation owners hide from field hands.
IRSC President Massey, appointed unanimously by the IRSC Board of Trustees, collected his $585,000 lump sum retirement benefit and makes over $527,000 a year collecting a pension and salaries from the State of Florida. What?
Governor Scott and the Florida Inspector General recently found cause to investigate Florida state college presidents like IRSC President Massey. Massey is the highest paid public official on the Treasure Coast and one of the highest paid public officials in the State of Florida. Massey is connected to big business interests.
Some Florida state legislators and county officials deny collecting retirement while receiving a salary from the state violates the intent of the retirement law. Why? Because many Florida state and county officials are collecting huge retirement benefits and a salary at the same time from Florida’s public coffers. (See: Lucy Morgan’s December 29, 2008 St. Petersburg Times article “State law loophole lets Florida public officials retire, then return to their jobs.” Do you think this is right?
The Florida taxpayer pay for this bloated “double dipping” by Florida public officials. It’s much worse than a bad date; it’s far larger than Indian River State College. Don’t we the people of the various states including Florida own state property and its public offices? Of course, we do.
College students are consumers. They carry burdensome federal student loan debt of around $60,000. Yet, IRSC Admin refuses to see or hear student complaints. IRSC students receive the same disrespect and abuse adjunct faculty do.
Students contract for the best instructors, yet IRSC Admin have never even seen the best and worst teach as is required by college accrediting agencies. They rig and break contracts against the will of students and adjunct faculty. They break the college’s own communications protocol and skate. The taxpayers, workers, and consumers have a right to equal protection of the laws and they deserve respect and fundamental fairness.
Students and adjunct faculty say college admin and tenured faculty are arrogant, incompetent, and tyrannical, and they do not communicate clearly or respectfully. You know there is a problem when the dean of communications and social sciences can’t and won’t communicate with students and adjuncts.
Students can’t find the professors they want because admin schedules most classes to be taught by “TBA.” IRSC students have classes filled with empty seats. Who gets promoted? What happened to merit pay? This is not good business for the public interest.
For the public good, the IRSC President, Board, of Trustees, and more than half the IRSC Administration should resign. The imperial disease of tyranny is killing the republic. Just witness the arrogant, virtue less incompetence in public education at one Indian River State College in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Student government coalitions and adjunct faculty unions must organize colleges and communities. Students who pay and the adjuncts who work are the two largest interest groups on campus, and the great majority must no longer be taxed without representation.
I for one want to abolish the evil inbred, top-heavy peculiar institution. Imperial abuse of power starts at the top and trickles down to the slave.
Revolutionary community organizations start at bottom with the workers (adjuncts) and consumers (students).
Reform laws and legislation will make creditors, corporations, and public officials accountable to the people.
“A hungry mob is an angry mob…”
—Bob Marley
Reid Friedson
Fort Pierce, Florida
Reid,
Its about get what you can, as fast as you can & hit the road for greener $$ pastures.
Sad but true and to think the rest of the world was already converted, the USA is almost the last place where guns are legal, no for long. YoBama will steal them all in a quite evenings penmanship.
Prot!